Published ahead of print on December 20, 2007, doi:10.1165/rcmb.2007-0120OC Am. J. Respir. Cell Mol. Biol., Volume 38, Number 5, May 2008, 572-578 A more recent version of this article appeared on May 1, 2008
Submitted on April 5, 2007 Alveolar Dynamics During Respiration: Are the Pores of Kohn a Pathway to Recruitment?Eman Namati1,1 Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA; Department of Informatics and Engineering, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia, 2 Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA; Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA, 3 Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA; Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA; Department of Radiology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA * To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: Geoffrey-McLennan{at}uiowa.edu.
The change in alveolar size and number during the full breathing cycle in mammals remains unanswered, yet these descriptors are fundamental for understanding alveolar based diseases and for improving ventilator management. Genetic and environmental mouse models are utilized increasingly to evaluate the evolution of disease in the peripheral lung; however, little is known regarding alveolar structure and function in the fresh, intact lung. Therefore, we have developed an optical confocal process to evaluate alveolar dynamics in the fresh intact mouse lung and as an initial experiment, have evaluated mouse alveolar dynamics during a single respiratory cycle immediately after passive lung deflation. We observe that alveoli become smaller and more numerous at the end of inspiration, and propose that this is direct evidence for alveolar recruitment in the mouse lung. The findings reported support a new hypothesis that requires recruitable secondary (daughter) alveoli to inflate via primary (mother) alveoli rather than from a conducting airway.
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